President Muhammadu Buhari’s supporters have said that only a rabble-rouser that has little understanding of good governance would describe the relationship between Executive and the Legislature as adversarial.
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) said in a statement signed by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, that the 9th National Assembly has been working in line with the developmental aspirations of the Nigerian people.
“We are shocked that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party that had the benefit of governing the country for 16 years, would want the Federal legislature where the All Progressives Congress (APC) has an absolute majority to be at odds with President Buhari.
“This is a group of people that enjoyed the aberration witnessed between 2015 and 2019 when a leadership that was elected on the platform of the ruling party opted to play the role of an internal opposition group and blocked people-oriented bills before eventually moving into the PDP.
“Now, this party which claims to be a better alternative is not happy with the mutual relationship between the legislature headed by Senate President Ahmad Lawan and the Presidency that is yielding fruitful dividends.
“The reality is that whichever way the PDP wants to twist Senator Lawan’s recent comments on the relationship, the 9th Senate and by extension, the National Assembly has shown how lawmakers can work for national interest without bickering with the executive.
“Do we have to remind the PDP leadership of the type of relationship between former President Goodluck Jonathan and the 7th Senate led by Senator David Mark.
“There was hardly any known instance of bickering between the two individuals and even throughout the eight years that Mark was Senate President, yet PDP believes that Lawan should descend to the level of the leadership of the 8th Senate in his relationship with President Buhari,” it added.
BMO also noted that in spite of the good relationship between the two arms of government, the current National Assembly cannot be described as a rubber stamp.
“In the context of its performance in the last few months, this National Assembly would prove to be better than previous ones inspite of efforts by opposition elements to paint the leadership in bad light.
“It’s no longer news that the two chambers did the President’s bidding by putting a stop to decades of government inactivity that was costing Nigeria about $1.4bn annually since 2004.
“This was through the passage of the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Act (Amendment) bill of 2019 within a few weeks of the Executive sending it in.
“For the avoidance of doubt, this is a law that could have been amended in national interest in 2004, 2008 and 2013, but nothing was done.
“President Buhari first made a move to amend the law in 2017 but the PDP-led National Assembly was simply not interested in Nigeria getting full benefits from its natural resources and of course that effort again failed until now.
“And of course, Nigerians are witnesses to the pace at which the Federal lawmakers are working on the 2020 budget proposal with a view to passing it into law before the end of 2019 so that the budget becomes operational from January 1, 2020.
“We acknowledge that this is unprecedented and it tallies with the wishes of the Nigerian people.
“So our message to these PDP rabble-rousers is that the Nigerian people were not wrong when in 2015 they not only replaced PDP at the centre with the APC, they also gave the party the majority of seats in the two chambers of the National Assembly.”
BMO then mocked “PDP elements to sit back and watch how two people-oriented arms of government can work in harmony in national interest.